


Please Stay

by DoodlesOfTheMind



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 05:48:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1293619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoodlesOfTheMind/pseuds/DoodlesOfTheMind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how Itachi tried, he never slept more than a few hours. Some nights, he didn’t sleep at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please Stay

No matter how Itachi tried, he never slept more than a few hours. Some nights, he didn’t sleep at all. Kisame could see the toll it was taking on his already failing health, but he knew that nothing he said would make a difference. He had learned what it was that drove Itachi to this state, though the younger man never spoke of it. Itachi was not the soulless murderer that so many had believed him to be for nearly ten years, but something far darker and more broken. _What kind of Kage can give an order like that?_ he wondered, watching as his partner’s breathing evened out and he pretended to rest. _And what kind of man can follow it?_ He remembered asking himself those same questions the day he first met the young Uchiha in one of the Akatsuki’s many shelters on the borders of Konoha, and he was beginning to think he knew the answer to the second one.

“Kisame-san,” Itachi said quietly, shaking him from his reverie.

“Hn?” He looked up, but Itachi’s eyes were still closed as he laid on his back.

For a long moment, Itachi said nothing, and Kisame began to think that he never would. It wouldn’t be unusual for the young Uchiha to leave him hanging like this, as if he had forgotten that he had spoken, but after a while, he sighed. “I do not need to be able to see you to know that you are worrying.”

Kisame chuckled halfheartedly. “Caught me. What did I do, breathe differently?”

As usual, Itachi didn’t realize he was teasing. “Yes, and your cloak rustles when you turn your head to look at me every few minutes.”

Kisame deliberately shifted the cloak around just to annoy him. Itachi’s eyesight was nearly gone. It had had little impact on his abilities, but the subtle shift in his personality was fascinating to Kisame. He wasn’t as threatening, which was not to say that he was any less dangerous, only that he seemed less inclined to display his terrifying strength. He permitted Kisame to be closer to him than ever before, sometimes near enough to touch the younger man if he dared to, and he spoke more often, as if he wanted to hear someone’s voice every now and then to reassure him that he was not alone.

“Sorry, kid. Didn’t mean to bother you,” he said with a small smile. “Do you want me to leave?”

Itachi didn’t answer for a long time, and Kisame was convinced that he was done talking for the week. This might be a new record, after all. He laid back on the bed nearest the door, the one he had claimed for himself when they checked into the seedy Iwa hotel, and sighed. Even if the Uchiha could subsist on nothing but tea and brooding thoughts, the Kiri swordsman needed rest. He tugged the duvet over himself and closed his eyes, but just as he fell asleep, he heard a very soft, hesitant voice whisper, “No. Please stay.”

His breath caught in his chest as he turned to look at his partner. Itachi’s dark, glassy eyes were fixed on a point just over Kisame’s shoulder as he lay on his side, his dark hair falling around his pale face like his black Amaterasu flames. That was another thing about Itachi’s near-blindness. That impassive mask he used for a face would slip more and more often, as if he was forgetting how much information could be gleaned from facial expressions. Right now, he looked terrified.

Kisame pretended not to hear, of course. Once Itachi realized that he had slipped, he would recover his usual poise, and that little window into his mind would slam shut. Itachi didn’t speak again, and Kisame watched as he closed his eyes and fell into a genuine, if light, sleep. It was peaceful to watch, and the older man soon fell asleep as well.


End file.
